


All The Ghosts We Love

by lilbluednacer



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, College, Dealing With Trauma, F/M, Freeform, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Original Character(s), Post-Canon, Scott's not doing so great at this whole school/life balance thing, Scott-Centric, but he's trying real hard, or trying to anyway, the occasional dead body, you poor babies look what Jeff did to you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 05:46:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17074505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilbluednacer/pseuds/lilbluednacer
Summary: You can't save everyone, Lydia tells him.But Scott can try.





	All The Ghosts We Love

**Author's Note:**

> I really love Scott and just want him to be happy but I wouldn't exactly classify this as a happy fic because let's be real here, I wrote it.

Usually Scott would wonder why he didn't hear Malia sneak into his small one bedroom apartment, a little haven ten minutes walking distance from campus, but he's just gotten back from Sante Fe, a brutal eighteen hour straight drive in a rental car Chris Argent arranged for him, Malia on a Greyhound a few hours behind him just to be safe, and he's sleeping the sleep of the dead, senses dulled by extreme fatigue.

At first Scott thinks he's dreaming when he feels her crawl into bed next to him, but then his nose twitches as her scent washes over him, too sharp and real to be a dream - the sugar-spice smell of her skin, green apple shampoo, undertones of loamy soil, sweat.

“What time is it?” he mutters, eyes still closed, sprawled out on his stomach.

“Late,” Malia murmurs, scooting close to him under the covers. “I just got back.”

He sighs sleepily into his pillow, one arm stretching out to cross over her bare back. “I would've picked you up.”

“Don't worry about it.” She slurs her words a little, already half asleep. “G’night.”

He slides his hand down the length of her spine and she's naked, all soft silky skin under his fingers, and he falls back asleep with his hand cupped over her bare ass.

*

The thing is, Scott loves Malia, and Malia loves him back, but he isn't totally sure if they're _in_ love. Their feelings for each other will always be inextricably tangled up in the hell that was their last summer in Beacon Hills, terror and desperation and loss all mixed up in it. It's too messy to sort out, how much of him loves her because she’s her and how much of it is because she's pack - familiar, safe, bonded to him by shared hardships and triumphs, trauma after trauma they've never really recovered from, just learned to live with. 

How many times did the two of them get trapped somewhere together, death so close he could taste it in the back of his throat? Malia, choking, water pouring out of her mouth, a spiked spear hitting him in the stomach in the tunnels the night Brett and Lori were killed. Holding each other in dark places, fear and panic pushing their bodies close together, the only comfort they had, in knowing they weren't all alone in their suffering.

It's been over two years since then and they've never really defined what they are, they don't call each other boyfriend and girlfriend or celebrate anniversaries, they drift apart sometimes and sleep with other people for awhile and then somehow, magnetically, find their way back to each other, lose themselves all over again in the single-minded pleasure of sex with someone who's seen every dark part of themselves and still wants them anyway.

They run together, they travel where Argent sends them when someone needs their help, they fuck in the middle of the night in his one bedroom apartment and because they're both shifters sex between them has a different sort of quality - they test each other's boundaries in a way he hadn't been used to before her. They pull each other's hair, scratch their skin open, leave bruises on necks and backs and thighs that fade before they can really even set in.

They get along better when they don't talk about it. 

*

He's made friends at school, because he can't help but be nice and it's easy to talk to people, superficially anyway, but Scott hasn't formed any relationships that have really stuck yet. There's a loose group of kids in his major that have an informal study group every Sunday afternoon in the student union’s coffee shop, he goes to parties at his freshman bio lab partner’s house most weekends, so it's not like he's lonely, not exactly. It's more like he's just really careful to always keep it casual, to never let anyone get too close to him.

He's lost too many people because of what he is. He's so afraid still, of his friends getting hurt because of him, cannot bear to break the illusion of this new reality he's inhabiting - where monsters are only real in movies, where there's nothing a few vodka shots and late night pizza can't fix. He walks around campus with his secrets humming under his skin and learns to live with the lies he tells until they don't feel like lies at all, just nice made up stories he wishes were true.

*

“Excuse me?” There's a teenage girl sitting on the steps outside Hutchison Hall one morning who jumps up when Scott comes out after his animal biology lecture and walks right over to him. “Are you Scott McCall?”

Scott looks her up and down, only a little ashamed that his first reaction is one of suspicion. She's maybe fifteen, skinny legs in tattered denim shorts, long blond hair pulled back in a messy ponytail and a smattering of freckles over her nose, bruised looking circles under her pale eyes, a leather mini backpack hanging from one bony shoulder. She looks weak and harmless but Scott's seen enough to know that size doesn't always equal strength.

He nods cautiously and steps a little closer. “Yeah. Who are you?”

“Callie.” She's staring at him, her eyes darting from his face to the tattoo on his arm to his hands. 

There's a sinking feeling in his stomach, Scott knows that look. “Why are you looking for me, Callie?”

The girl glances around surreptitiously, making sure no one is paying attention to them, and flashes gold eyes at Scott before they return to their natural icy blue. Scott swallows back his apprehension and allows red to bleed into his eyes, just for a second, before letting them fade back to brown. She lets out a broken sob before slapping her palm against her mouth and he doesn't miss the way she tilts her head a little to the side, swaying like she might fall over.

“I'm sorry,” she whimpers, and when she squeezes her eyes shut tears roll down her cheeks. “Sorry, I'm just having a really bad week. God, this is so embarrassing, I'm just going to go jump off a bridge now.”

“It's okay,” he says gently, resisting the urge to laugh fondly at her teenage hyperbole, and rests his hand on her shoulder for a moment while she wipes her eyes with the edge of her hand. “Come on, I'll buy you a cup of coffee.”

He walks her to the coho, a sunny cafe just north of the quad, his chest contracting a little when she cautiously twines a few of her fingers around his, not in a romantic way, but like how kids cling to an adult when they're scared. He recognizes the raw hunger on her face when they go inside, her nostrils flaring as the scent of warm brown sugar and bacon and sizzlings eggs wash over them. When he asks if she's hungry he doesn't miss the way her eyes go a little haunted, shrugging casually like he can't hear her stomach growling.

He buys her a cheese omelet with a side of bacon, a bagel smeared thick with cream cheese, and a large orange juice, walks her to a table in the corner of the room and lounges back in his chair, watching as she devours the bacon in a few messy bites before gulping down half her juice. It weirdly makes him think of Isaac eating breakfast one morning at his house before school, shoving his mom’s pancakes into his mouth so fast Scott thought he might choke, and he wonders briefly at how many of them are out there, half-starved betas who look at Scott like he magically has all the answers.

He cradles a cup of bitter black coffee in his palms, watching as she furiously chews a mouthful of her bagel before she swallows, wipes her hands with a napkin and drops them into her lap, her fingers tapping nervously against her thighs. She turns and looks out the window for a moment, closing her eyes against the light, her skin so fair he can see the blue veins pulsing in her throat.

“They're all gone,” she whispers, and reaches up to push the heels of her hands against her closed eyelids. “My pack.”

Scott sets his cup down and slides his chair around the table so he's sitting next to her. “What happened?”

She scrubs her hands over her face a few times before blinking, pale glazed eyes staring out the window. “I was born human,” she says quietly. “I got sick when I was a kid, some kind of rare autoimmune thing. The doctors couldn't do anything, they didn't have a cure for it. My parents were desperate, they started reaching out to anyone they knew. They were looking for a miracle, I guess. And then my mom’s college roommate sent her an email. She said she could save me.”

“She was an alpha?”

Callie shakes her head. “No. But when she was in grad school she fell in love with a beta and they got married, she became like an honorary member of the pack. She convinced their alpha to give me the bite. My parents dropped everything and drove us there, they lived in North Carolina.”

“Their alpha turned you?”

“I was only five. I didn't really understand it at the time, I just knew it meant I wouldn't be sick anymore. They - they brought me into their pack. My parents bought a house down the block from the pack house, I kind of grew up back and forth between them. She - my alpha - taught me how to control the shift. We all spent full moons together camping. They were a big family, it had always just been me and my parents before and then it was like overnight I had brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. I was the baby. They spoiled me, probably. I loved being part of the pack. My parents were happy because I was healthy. Everything - things were good, you know?”

Scott reaches out and catches her trembling fingers in his. “What happened to them?”

She sniffs, dropping her head down to wipe her nose on her tee shirt. “A few weeks ago my mom picked me up from school and - she wouldn't tell me what was wrong. Just that the, the pack was having an issue and we all needed to lay low for awhile. She gave me some cash and put me on a bus. I didn't know what to do, I ended up going all the way to Florida. I tried calling when I got there but no one ever answered. I bummed around for awhile, met a couple shifters in Orlando. They were cool, they were from Phoenix I think, got drove out by hunters. They were the ones who told me about you. A true alpha. They said if I couldn't go home I should try to find you. I guess they heard you were, uh, helping packs get away from hunters, you're kind of famous, you know?”

Scott shrinks a little in his chair; he's still not comfortable with it, the savior complex that gets projected onto him sometimes. He never thought of himself like a hero back then, he was just a dumb kid who got in way over his head, he was just trying to survive. To save his friends.

“So you came here?” he asks.

She shakes her head a little. “I went back home first, when the money started to run out it’d been almost two weeks, I figured it would be okay to go back. I had to - I had to know, what was happening. What happened. But when I got home… they were all gone. I mean, _gone_. The houses, both of them, they were… there was nothing left. Not even their bodies. They're gone.”

She folds her arms over the table, drops her head onto them, and starts to cry. Scott spreads one hand over her back, feeling her body shake. After a moment she turns her face to the side, tears sliding down her cheeks. “I'm sorry. I didn't have anywhere else to go.”

Scott grabs a few napkins and passes them to her. “It's okay,” he reassures her gently. “I'm going to help you. I can help you.”

He takes her back to his place and lets her use his shower while he makes a few phone calls. When she comes out of his bathroom, a clean towel wrapped tightly around her body, Scott hands her an old pair of Malia’s shorts and a blue tank top Lydia left behind the last time she and Stiles visited. 

“Here, these are clean,” he tells her.

She takes the clothes and shuffles back into the bathroom to change. When she comes out she gives him a shy smile and pulls a little plastic hairbrush out of her backpack and runs it through her wet hair.

“There's a pack out in Mendocino,” Scott tells her, and Callie freezes for a second before dropping down on the couch next to him. “We helped relocate them last year from Tucson. They've got a big place close to the Mendocino Headlands State Park. It's really pretty there. And it's safe, a witch put wards all around it, it's totally hidden from hunters. They've got room for you there, if you want it.”

She stares at him with big eyes, her bottom lip trembling. “A whole pack?”

“Yeah, they're all really nice, I think they even have a few kids around your age. I know it - that nothing will ever bring your family back but you'd be safe there.”

She wipes away a few tears with a trembling hand and gives him a closed lipped smile that reminds him a little of Lydia. “Okay.”

Scott walks her across campus to the Greyhound station and buys her a ticket to Santa Rosa. “My friend Derek is going to pick you up there and drive you the rest of the way,” he explains. “You can trust him, we've known each other other for a long time. He looks a little intimidating but he's a good guy, and a born wolf. You'll be safe with him.”

“Okay,” she says, nerves emanating from her so strongly that he can smell it, acridness burning in his nose.

He buys her a bottle of water and a bag of pretzels, takes out the fifty bucks in cash he has in his wallet and makes her take it even as her cheeks flush with embarrassment. When her bus comes Scott goes outside to wait in line with her. When it's her turn to get on the bus she whirls around and throws her arms around his neck.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

He thinks about holding Allison's body in his arms, Erica and Boyd, Brett and Lori, all the ones he couldn't save. “You're welcome,” he says back, and gives her a gentle squeeze before pulling away.

He stands back and watches her climb onto the bus, he can see her through the window when she finds a seat and sits down. He can still hear her racing heartbeat and he watches her find him in the crowd outside, hears it when she whispers _goodbye_ and presses her hand against the glass.

Scott waves to her and whispers back, _good luck_ , and stays there until the bus pulls away.

*

“I'm not seeing anything in missing persons,” Stiles says through the computer screen, squinting at a browser window Scott can't see. “I'll do some digging, a whole pack can't just disappear without a trace.”

“They're probably dead,” Scott says glumly, leaning back against the couch, his laptop balanced on his thighs. “I'm sure the hunters cleaned up after themselves.”

“Hey, hey, where's the positive attitude we've been working on? C’mon Scotty, what happened to the optimistic alpha I know and love?”

“I just put an orphan on a bus to go live with a bunch of strangers, I'm not feeling the optimism right now.”

“Scott.” Stiles leans forward, his face filling up the screen. “You're doing the best you can, okay?”

“Is that Scott?” Lydia's voice floats from somewhere offscreen.

“Hey Lydia,” he calls out.

“Stiles, did you ask him about his paper yet?”

Stiles makes a face and leans out of the screen for a second but Scott can still hear him when he hisses, “No, I haven't, give me five minutes.”

“I don't have five minutes!” Lydia pops into the frame over Stiles’ shoulder. “Scott, honey, I need you to email me your paper by tonight if you still want me to look it over for you.”

Scott winces. “I'm not done yet.”

Lydia sighs. “Just send me what you have so far and I'll edit what I can. I've got to go, I'm going to be late.” She waves at the screen and kisses the side of Stiles’ head before disappearing from view.

“Sorry,” Stiles apologizes. “She's TA’ing four undergrad sections this semester, she's just stressed out.”

“It's okay.”

“Hey.” Stiles frowns a little. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I just miss you guys.”

Stiles’ expression softens. “I'm sorry we couldn't make it back for Thanksgiving.”

“It's okay, I know you're both busy.” Scott marvels for a second, at the easy way Stiles refers to him and Lydia as a _we_ now, how seamlessly they've seemed to adjust to being a couple who have actual lives beyond just surviving another day.

“You should come for winter break! Dad's coming for Christmas, it'll be great, you haven't had a real Christmas without snow, you'll love it.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Scott hedges. He knows better than to commit to something when for all he knows he’ll be halfway around the world by then, on another desperate mission to save someone. “We'll see.”

*

“I can't believe we agreed to do this,” Malia complains, rubbing her hands together against the cold. “This place is huge, we're gonna be here all night.”

They're walking through the Santiam State Forest in Oregon, looking for a house Chris Argent said belonged to a pack that he was supposed to help sneak into Canada last week but apparently never showed at the rendezvous point. Scott had reluctantly volunteered himself and Malia to do recon, they'd taken a bus up Interstate Five earlier that day and checked into a motel off the highway so they have a place to crash later before trekking into the woods.

Scott tilts his head suddenly at the faint rushing sound he hears. Chris didn't have exact coordinates for the house but he said it was near a waterfall. “You hear that?”

Malia goes very still, the puff of her breath visible in the cold night air. “Water.”

“C’mon.” Scott picks up the pace to a light jog and Malia trails after him, the reassuring slap of her boots against the dirt loud in his ear.

They come through a cluster of trees and slow to a stop, staring in awe in front of them - they've found the waterfall, shimmering silver in the moonlight. 

Malia slips her hand into his, her eyes wide. “Whoa.”

He gives her a second to fully admire it before tugging gently on her hand to pull her along. “Come on, we must be close, the house isn't supposed to be far from here.”

They walk around the edge of the pool, mud getting all over the bottoms of his Timberland boots, and back into the woods. They tiptoe from tree to tree, on high alert for signs of hunters, but the woods are empty, the only heartbeat Scott can hear is Malia's. After about twenty minutes Malia squints and lifts her arm to point with her free hand.

“There,” she whispers. “See it?”

Scott blinks against the darkness and then it comes into view, a two story house barely visible behind a large clump of trees. They approach carefully, Scott a few paces ahead and Malia walking backwards to scan the woods as they makes it to the front door. Scott shakes the sleeve of his blue striped hoodie over his hand so his skin doesn't touch the knob as he forces the door open, they've heard stories about hunters leaving traps, coating surfaces with powdered wolfsbane. 

Malia slips inside behind him and lets the door creak closed. She looks around curiously; they're standing in a hallway, a set of stairs to their left. The house is cold and the air smells musty but there's something buried under it that makes Scott's nose crinkle up, something bad, like rotting fruit. He walks forward a few paces and pushes on a door that's set into the wall, it swings wide and concrete steps appear, leading down into a well of darkness. He listens carefully but he can't hear anything beyond him and Malia, the twin beats of their hearts and the rise and fall of their breath.

“I'll go down, you go up?” he suggests.

Malia's mouth twists to the side, like she wants to object, but she nods reluctantly. “Be careful.”

“You too.” He gives her hand a quick squeeze and then descends down into the darkness.

He lets his claws come out as he takes the stairs down, his boots echoing on the concrete. When he hits the bottom he's in some kind of cellar, the floor made of packed dirt, dusty shelves against the far wall, a single light bulb set into the ceiling. He reaches up and pulls on the dangling string and the light flickers before turning on. Scott blinks against the glare, looking around, but the basement is empty, nothing suspicious to be seen, no blood, no bloodies, just a crawl space set into the far wall. He walks over to examine it, it looks like it opens up into a tunnel. If anyone was here he can't smell it, he turns the light back off and carefully retreats up the stairs.

“Malia,” he calls out softly when he gets back into the hallway.

No response. He focuses, traces her heartbeat to a room upstairs. He takes the stairs up to the second floor and follows the sound of Malia's heart to a bedroom on the far side of the hall. The door’s half open, he slips inside and looks around. The room is dark, there's a bed pushed against the opposite wall, a window with a large crack splintering the glass, and there's Malia, sitting with her back pressed against a wooden dresser. Her legs are bent at the knee and she's staring blankly across the room at the bed. Scott inhales and startles at the smell of salt and iron, when he looks closer he realized Malia's claws are out, all ten fingers pushed into her thighs, blood soaking through her jeans and dripping down onto the floor.

Scott rushes over to her and kneels at her feet, reaching out to wrap his fingers around her wrists. “Malia, what are you doing?” 

She stares past him, her eyes glazed over. “Look,” she croaks.

Scott rocks back on his heels and stands up, carefully crosses the room over to the bed and hunches over as he sees it, his stomach contracting like he's just gotten sucker punched: laid out on the bed is a little girl, dead eyes open and unseeing, an arrow pierced through her heart, dried black liquid trickling out of her ears and nose. He closes his eyes for a moment, overwhelmed by a crushing wave of grief for this child he doesn't know, who died for nothing.

He stumbles back across the room and sinks down next to Malia. “You're hurting yourself,” he tells her quietly, and pulls her claws out of her legs, blood all over her fingers.

“She looks like her,” Malia says hoarsely. “Kylie.”

He kisses the side of her head and takes her by the elbow. “We need to go.”

She curls up tighter, tears spilling over her cheeks. “We can't just leave her here.”

“Argent’ll take care of it. Malia, c’mon we need to get out of here.”

She allows him to pull her to her feet and he leads her out of the room, across the hall and down the stairs. They stumble outside and Scott sucks in fresh lungfuls of air, trying to clear the dead body smell out of his nose.

Malia gags and trips sideways, reaching out to rest her hand against a tree trunk. “I'm gonna puke.”

Scott holds her hair away from her face while she retches, rubs her back and murmurs nonsense until she spits into a pile of leaves and straightens up, wiping her mouth with the cuff of her flannel sleeve. They don't talk on the walk back to the motel, Malia stone faced and silent next to him as they stumble through the cold night, his hand tight on the back of her neck. Their room faces the parking lot, they weave between parked sedans and SUV’s and climb a flight of steps up to their room. He opens the door with the keycard and guides her inside, reaches down to kick off his mud caked boots before ushering her into the bathroom.

“C’mon,” he says gently, leaning her back against the sink. “Let's get you cleaned up.”

Malia reaches her arms up, silent, and lets him peel her shirt up and over her head. He drops it on the floor to unbutton her jeans and kneels down between her legs to tug them off, the denim fabric stiff with mud and blood. The self-inflicted gauges in her legs have already closed up, five raw looking half moons on each thigh, her skin flaky with dried blood. He stands back up and leans into the shower to turn the water on before turning back to her. She's staring blankly at the wall, her bloody fingers curled into her palms. Scott cracks open the little bottle of mouthwash on the edge of the sink and pours some into a paper cup.

“Here.” He presses it into her palm and Malia takes the cup robotically, swishes the mouthwash around and spits into the sink.

He sticks one hand into the shower to check the temperature before pulling her toward the tub, reaching around her back to undo her bra clasp for her. She shrugs it off and leans into him, hooking her chin over his shoulder, shaking with her whole body. He tugs her boyshorts down over her hips and she pulls away to kick them off, crossing her arms over her chest. He pulls the shower curtain open for her but Malia doesn't get in, instead looking at him with eyes that flicker icy blue. 

Scott swallows hard before reaching down to grab the hem of his shirt, ignoring the rush of deja vu, remembering that one night during their last summer in Beacon Hills - bloody skin, the shower, her naked wet body pressed against his as the water had washed away the blood. He shucks off all his clothes and Malia stares at him, teeth sunk into her bottom lip. She walks backwards to step over the lip of the tub and Scott follows her into the shower. As soon as he gets the curtain closed she pounces on him, eyes flashing, blunt human teeth pressing into his throat. 

Scott growls and spins them around, sending drops of water splashing across the tiles as he pushes her against the wall, his hands tight on her shoulders. She growls back and tries to fight against his hold but she's got no leverage so she slips forward instead, Scott throws her back against the wall and pins her arms above her head, her chest heaving.

“Calm down,” he orders, and flashes red eyes at her.

Blue shines back at him and she's all aggression, her upper lip curled up in a snarl, chest arched, her body fighting for something he knows all too well - the need to escape, to get rid of it: the guilt, the pain, the past that haunts them, the terrible silence of ghosts.

It's not the healthiest of coping mechanisms but he's here and he can give her this - the comforting weight of his body, a minor reprieve, a few minutes just to feel good, to revel in being alive.

To forget.

Scott tightens his grip on her wrists and shoves his body up against her so she's pinned and he feels it when she gives in, her knees going weak, head falling back against the wall.

“Hey.” He can hear the race of her heart against the pounding of the water, her body bleeding adrenaline. “Calm. Down.”

Her eyes flutter shut and when they open again they're honey brown and glassy. “Scott,” she croaks, pushing her hips into his. “C’mon. _Please._ ”

He lets go of her wrists and skims his hands down her chest, traces the curves of her waist and hips, dips them down between her legs before feeling out the knots of healing scar tissue on her legs, by the time they get out of the shower he knows the skin will be completely smooth again, unblemished, like it never happened, like she never sat in that room alone with a dead body and tore her thighs open with her claws. “I don't want you to hurt yourself.”

“Okay.” Her voice is shaking, barely audible, desperate. “Sorry, I'm sorry, Scott, I need” -

He kisses her, one hand anchoring her hip, the other sliding between her legs. “Shh, it's okay. I know, it's okay.”

Malia exhales harshly and drops her head forward to rest it on his shoulder, her mouth hot against his skin. “Please,” she whispers, pushing her hips into his touch.

“Okay, okay,” he says quietly, and starts to stroke his fingertips against the silky wetness of her skin, tightening his grip on her hip when she groans and bucks against him. “It's okay.”

*

They don't see each other for a few days when they get back, Scott goes to class and uses all his free time to frantically catch up on studying. Midterms are coming up and he feels hopelessly unprepared, but at the same time he can't make himself care as much as he knows he should because what's a test grade compared to dead little girls and hunters and entire families being wiped off the map? He sleeps through the weekend, his dreams haunted by arrows and bloody wolves and and once, Allison, her face as white as the moon, cold and dead in his arms, and then spends the next two days at the coho, buried in his books.

He finally breaks one night and calls Lydia when he's walking through the Arboretum, which is a little creepy at night, he's heard stories of people getting mugged here, but it's not scary to Scott; it feels almost laughable actually, when he has claws and super senses and teeth to defend himself if he ever has to.

“You just need to be more organized,” Lydia tells him. “If I make you a study guide will you use it?”

“That would be amazing, would you mind?” he asks. He feels a little guilty relying on Lydia for help with school when he knows how busy she is but not enough to turn down her offer.

“I'll put something together for you, you sent me your syllabus at the beginning of the year.”

“Because you made me,” he laughs.

“Someone's got to keep you on track, honestly Scott, you can't just run off all the time to” -

“Yes I can,” he argues, cutting her off. “I have to, Lydia, you know how important” -

“I know that _getting a degree_ is important and if you keep dropping your schoolwork to do Argent’s bidding you won't graduate on time and you'll hate yourself for it.”

Scott rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand. “I'm doing the best that I can, okay?”

“I know you are,” she says carefully. “It's just… we're worried about you.”

 _We_ again. As much as he loves hearing them use that word it feels like Stiles and Lydia wield it like a weapon sometimes. “What do you mean?”

“You don't even have a plan! Are you just going to do this forever? What happens when you get into vet school?”

“I don't know yet,” he says defensively. “But I'm helping people. I can help them so I have to, don't I? You can't tell me that doesn't matter.”

“Of course it matters,” she says impatiently. “But you matter too. And if you keep going this way…”

“What?” 

“You're going to burn yourself out,” she says quietly. “You have to know that.”

“I'm okay,” he protests.

“Scott…” Lydia's voice trembles a bit. “You can’t save everyone.”

He swallows hard, wondering if Lydia can feel them too, the ghosts of everyone they’ve lost, if Allison is whispering in her ear right now, getting Lydia to do her bidding, because even though Allison is gone she’s never really left them.

“I know that,” he says eventually.

“Just be careful out there, okay?”

“I will,” he promises. “I always am.”

“Good.” He can hear a sniffing sound, like she's blowing her nose. “I'll send you that study guide by the morning, okay?”

“Thank you. Seriously, you're saving my ass right now.”

“The things I do for those I love,” she says, her voice teasing and sharp.

Scott smiles fondly. “I love you too, Lydia.”

*

“I think I'm going to go to Joshua Tree,” Malia says one night, wrapped up in his sheets with her back to his chest, her head leaning on his shoulder as they watch Daredevil on Netflix.

Scott digs his fingers into her traps, trying to release the little knots in her muscles. “Yeah?”

She twists a bit and pushes into his touch. “I just… fuck, that feels good. I need a break.”

He slides his hands under her hair and presses his thumbs into the space between her shoulder blades and her spine. “For how long?”

“I don't know yet.”

He sighs and kisses the back of her head. “Okay.”

She half-turns in his lap, the sheet falling to expose her bare chest. “You could come with me.”

“Can't, I've got a midterm next week.” He slides his hands down to her waist to pull her flush against him, chest to chest, and Malia smirks.

“You could blow it off,” she suggests.

“I wish.” He tips his head back, trying to focus on this - the weight of her on top of him, her hips locked against his. “I have to get at least a B or I'm in serious trouble.”

She skims her hands over his shoulders and down his chest. “I don't know why you bother.”

He frowns a little. “Because I actually want to get into vet school when I graduate?”

“I'm just saying.” She squirms a little against him, her eyes slipping shut. “We deserve a break. We're the ones running all over the West Coast, getting our asses kicked half the time” -

“I know,” he agrees wistfully. 

“It's not fair.” She pouts a little and rolls her hips against him until he has to bite down on his bottom lip. “C’mon, it'll be fun. You and me, under the stars, no running from hunters, no taking orders from Argent, we can shift whenever we want…”

Clawtips trace down his abs and Scott hisses, one hand groping across the mattress for a condom. “Maybe… over winter break,” he pants out.

Malia shifts her weight against him and moans, her head falling back. “You work too hard.” 

His hand finally connects with a foil packet and he brings it up to his mouth to tear it open with his teeth. “Probably.”

Malia lifts her head and smiles, reaching for the wrapper to discard it before going up on her knees to watch him roll the condom down. “So let me do the work this time.”

She sinks down on him and everything is warm and tight, his stomach a knot of anticipation, his scattered thoughts whiting out as she moves. Malia sways over him, lips parted, eyes half shut as she coaxes him into a steady rhythm, the soft sounds of her moans like white noise in his ears.

Scott lets his head fall back against the pillows, shuts his eyes, and surrenders.


End file.
